St. George's School, Vancouver - Review #2

I drank maple syrup for breakfast every day for four years. Dark amber only. My friends thought I was joking until they saw me do it. The inflatable chinchilla named Puffy lived on my desk and I brought him to class once for a physics presentation about buoyancy. The teacher gave me extra credit. That is St. George's in a nutshell. Weird stuff welcome.

The best thing that happened to me was the physics teacher giving me extra credit for bringing Puffy to class. Not because of the grade. Because it meant the school saw my weird thing and said yes instead of no. That happened over and over for eleven years. I became someone who is not afraid to be weird because I was never punished for it.

I would have started the philosophy club earlier so it could have failed twice as many times. I would have brought Puffy to more classes just to see what happened. Advice for someone new is this. Be weirder than you think you should be. The school will handle it.

What I liked most was that nobody ever told me to grow up. I drank syrup, kept a chinchilla on my desk, solved math problems for fun, and spent hours in the art studio making nothing. St. George's let me be eleven years old for eleven years.

Puffy says hi. The snack bar has these weird protein bars that taste like cardboard but they work. The art studio is in the basement and the windows are small but the light is good anyway. If you bring an inflatable chinchilla to physics class, sit in the front row so the teacher can see you.

My friend Eric wrote that I am super duper duper good at math and I cannot argue with him because he has seen me do things with numbers that should not be possible. But the truth is I just like patterns. Teachers let me go at my own speed which meant I was often three chapters ahead and still showing up to ask dumb questions about the stuff I skipped.

I am jacked. That is not a brag. It is just what happens when you lift weights five days a week because you have anxiety and need to exhaust your body so your brain will shut up. The fitness center was my therapist. I never played a single varsity game of anything.

The art studio smelled like paint and pencil shavings and quiet. I spent hours there not making anything good just making anything at all. The teacher once said I had the hands of a sculptor and the brain of an accountant and I am still not sure if that was a compliment.

I started a philosophy club that met twice. The first meeting we talked about whether a tree makes a sound if no one is there to hear it. The second meeting nobody showed up. I consider that a successful run. The outdoor ed trips were required but I kept going because being in the woods is cheaper than therapy.

I was a day kid but Puffy stayed overnight at Harker Hall sometimes when I forgot to take him home. My boarding friends would send me photos of him sitting in their common room like he lived there. The dorm parents apparently thought he was hilarious.

Grilled cheese and tomato soup every single time. The lunch ladies started making it the moment they saw me walk in. I never ordered anything else for four years. That is either commitment or a problem and I do not care which.

Vancouver has a beach and mountains and I saw both of them maybe twice. I was too busy being inside doing math or art or lifting things. The city was wasted on me honestly.

My friends were the other kids who did not fit anywhere. Math team kids who also painted. Art kids who also lifted. One guy who collected vintage calculators. We had a group chat called The Misfit Toys. St. George's had space for all of us.